Some of our public men who are so ardent in forwarding new schemes and improvements can, of course, say that if these developments mean higher rates and growing assessments, they themselves have to bear their share of the burdens.  This, of course, is so, but it must be owned that when we have a hand in spending large sums of money with the influence and importance that accompany the process, we pay our quota of the financial imposts if not cheerfully, at least without the grudging feeling of those who merely have to pay, pay, pay.

Gentle, and I trust forbearing, reader I have written my story, and have added to my iniquity by publishing it in book form, but I indulge a small hope that it may possibly interest a limited number of those who, like myself, have watched with their own eyes the rapid growth and almost amazing development of Birmingham during the last forty or fifty years.  Writing almost entirely from my own observation and memory, I may have made some slips and mistakes, but I have tried to be careful and accurate, and have endeavoured to verify my facts and figures from authentic sources when possible.  I therefore venture to hope that my errors are not very many, and not of any serious moment.

Writers, we know, are often prone to say that if their readers experience as much pleasure in reading their pages as the writers have had in writing them, the said readers will be rewarded for their time and pains.  I am not going to repeat this pretty formula, I am rather inclined to say that if my readers experience my feeling that I have said enough, they will not be sorry to see these last words of my final page.

INDEX.

Artisans’ Dwellings Act 3, 21
Aston Hull 5, 113
Assize Courts 120
Atkins, James 198
Attwood, Thomas 1

Barnett, J.F. 210
Big Ben of Westminster 177
Birmingham and Midland Institute 186
“B’ham Belgravia” 95
Birmingham Bishopric Scheme 75
Birmingham Daily Gazette 126
Birmingham Daily Mail 128
Birmingham Morning News 126
Birmingham Daily Post 125
Birmingham Daily Press 123
Birmingham Old Library 223
Birmingham Workhouse 110
Board Schools 93
Bright, John 12, 52, 192
Brougham, Lord 188

Cambridge StreetWorks Schools 198
Chamberlain, Arthur 71
Chamberlain, Austen 65
Chamberlain, Herbert 72
Chamberlain, John Henry 49, 95
Chamberlain, Joseph 11, 32, 33
Chamberlain, Richard 70
Chamberlain, Walter 72
Christ Church, Birmingham 110
Church of the Messiah 76
Collings, Jesse 79
Costa, Sir Michael 212
Costa’s “Eli” 206